Hi All.
im new to Linux Ubuntu
I little history first.
I have been given 3 desk top pcs. They are Acer i5 from about 2012. They were surplus and going to be dumped.
I thought i could do something with them and Seti @home seems like a good idea. I have been doing a bit of seti@home since 2014. Windows based.
I have managed to make a bootable usb stick with ubuntu 1804 on it. I changed the boot order on the pc (they were running Windows 7) and now have the Ubuntu fully installed and working on one of the pcs.
Got this pc on line and logged into my page on seti@home. Downloaded bonic (its in my down load file) .
and i have tried for hours to get it to install but computer/Ubuntu cant find bonic on the pc.
What am i doing wrong?
I have very carefully followed different sets of instructions from the seti site and from around the web but no luck, it just cant find the down load yet if i look into my files i can find it.
I am not very computer literate but can get around them but ether me of ubuntu are proving a bit thick.
So with all this in mind is there a thickos / idiots guide to the installation of bonic on ubuntu.
Thanks in advance for your patience .
Simon.

Are you trying to install the "repository" Boinc and Seti?

Or Tbar's All-in-One solution?

A very good beginners thread over in Number Crunching is: https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=81271

Another question is are you trying to boot/run from a usb flashdrive permanently? Or just install from it?

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

OK - time for a deep breath...
Some of the instructions within the SETI forum only apply to specific builds of BOINC or specific Linux distros.
I never had much luck with Ubuntu, but did get it working after a lot of trial and error (much more of the latter than I wanted)
So I tried Mint and it worked pretty well out of the box, and this appears to work much the same for newer builds of ubuntu. Setting aside many of Tom's questions there are a few simple steps.
Assuming you are using a GUI installation that "looks Windowsish":
Find in the "start menu" the software installation manager and run that.
Use this to get the repository version of BOINC (there are many, many many non-repository versions around....) and install it.

BIG ASSUMPTION (for now at least....) - you want to run "stock" applications, and are (initially) not worried about using any GPU you have.

BOINC will be added to one of the menu items - with any luck it will have an entry all on its own.
Start BOINC, select "add a project", select SETI, then choose the "returning user" option, enter the email address and password you use for your existing account.
On one of my three Linux boxes doing this selected the "correct" set of drivers for the GPUs, on the other two I had to do a bit of digging around to find out how to select the correct ones - MINT comes with a "driver manager" application that can be used to swap between driver sets and even install new ones if they are available.

This will get you going (I hope). There are many ways of proceeding from here.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Looking at your PC I see it is a laptop, with an oldish i7 8-core processor and a built-in nVidia Quadro K1000m GPU. The CPU is quite reasonable, but the built-in GPU is "long in the tooth", and several generations too old to run the current highly optimised applications that Tom is talking about, so sticking with "stock" will be about as good as one it will ever go - it will probably run the "SoG" application, but that will be its upper limit in terms of performance

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Thank you for your replies. I will try all of them but it looks like I may have to install Linux Mint and try that.
As for my old lap top it's doing a grand job.
The desk tops are the ones that are giving me greef.
Iĺl give Mint a try tomorrow.
The asers just cannot see the downloaded file.
I could be wrong. I downloaded from seti@home.
Will play tomorrow, again.
Gentlemen, thank you.
Simon

Thank you for your time and effort.
I have come to the end of my limited patience with the "Linux thing" . Wasted several days trying to get it to work and got no where.
I'm now absolutely sure why people stick with Windows. Put simply, it works.
Linux , for me, just cannot do what it's needed to do out of the box. Way to much messing with bits and pieces of different files etc. Way too messy. Good luck to those that can put up with that kind of messing about. Why do seti@home have a download marked Linux that will not work for all???
To the people that tried to help I thank and admire you.
Computers have now gone to silicone heaven.
Thanks again
Simon

Sorry to hear that you've reached the end of your patience and the the silicon has now gone to Silicone Heaven, where all good computers go to rest. RIP dear computer, enjoy your well earned rest.

Just a few tips for those that would follow:
- Linux likes to bite those who try to be clever beyond their level, so when starting out keep it as simple as possible and don't try to beat Linux, but get used to it before moving to the next level.
- Start by choosing a "stable", well user-supported distribution (Ubuntu, & Mint come to mind here, I tried a good few before finding Mint suited my head, they are very similar and have a large user base here).
- To start with use use the repository version of BOINC and just run the "stock" versions of applications - they may not be the fastest, but they generally work quite well.
- At the outset, don't worry about the stuff people will say about needing to use the command terminal - you don't need it to start with, but may do in time (depending on how you want to run SETI).
- Don't update the OS unless you really need to, Linux is generally more stable than Windows, but can get very upset if you do upgrade upon upgrade in the wrong order... (I can't remember when I last did a Linux upgrade that wasn't forced by having done a hardware update).

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=83651&postid=1969932

start at install boinc..... altho this is fir a current ubuntu install it should still work

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"Don't worry about it, nothing is gonna be O.K. anyway.........."